Eileen Ormsby - The Darkest Web: Drugs, death and destroyed lives ... the inside story of the internet’s evil twin

Praise for Silk Road

Ormsbys investigative journalism shines as she provides a very thorough account of Ulbrichts rise and fall. Penthouse Magazine

Through her clear rendering of the facts, Ormsby makes the intricacies of the technology involved accessible to even the most technophobic of readers. The tone is conversational and friendly while the content is intriguing and increasingly dark. In her quest to uncover the mystery behind the enigmatic DPR she uncovers a story of subterfuge, replete with conspiracy theories and hidden identities, that is rich with anecdotes. Newtown Review of Books

The book is a fascinating expose of this particular aspect of the dark web of internet dealings and its subsequent unravelling. Sydney Morning Herald

Ormsby is a great writer, giving us gripping accounts from the people who actually used Silk Road to paint an accurate picture of how the website was created, run, and ultimately fellSilk Road is easily one of the best books Ive read this year. The Library NZ

Silk Road is one of the more readable and gripping true crime books of recent times. It is not just Ormsbys knowledge of the brief but spectacular rise and fall of Silk Road that makes for compelling reading, but also the ordering of the material so that the reader has the sense of being educated in the technical and legal background to an astonishing criminal enterprise. The Australian

For the most complete account of the original Silk Road, which was closed down by the FBI in late 2013, Eileen Ormsbys book Silk Road is the best place to start. Its full of original research, interviews and insight. This is best read along with her excellent blog, AllThingsVice, which covers several aspects of the dark net, but especially the dark net markets. Jamie Bartlett, author of Darknet and Radicals

A great strength of the meticulously researched Silk Road is the manner in which Ormsby gently takes the reader by the hand, unpacking the technology underpinning this dark net market. Australian Police Journal

Eileen Ormsby is a lawyer, author and freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Her first book, Silk Road was the worlds first in-depth expose of the black markets that operate on the dark web. Her gonzo-style investigations have led her deep into the secretive corners of the dark web where drugs and weapons dealers, hackers, hitmen and worse ply their trade. Many of these dark web interactions turned into real-world relationships, entanglements, hack attempts on her computer and even death threats from the dark webs most successful hitman network as she researched Darkest Web. She now lives a quiet life off-grid as much as possible.

Unless otherwise stated all currency is in US dollars

First published in 2018

Copyright Eileen Ormsby 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

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ISBN 978 1 76029 785 5

eISBN 978 1 76063 551 0

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Cover design: Design by Committee

For Mum and Dad, who gave me my love of reading and who secretly wish I wrote nice literary fiction, but are nevertheless unrelentingly proud and supportive of everything I do.

CONTENTS

This book deals with violent and distressing subject matter, particularly Darkest, which describes incidents of child sexual abuse and torture. Reader discretion is advised.

Chris Monteiro stares at his computer screen, heart in his mouth. When the two-minute show finishes, the cybersecurity expert restarts it, looking for signs that it has been faked.

The video is substandard both in terms of plot and production values, but the content is chilling. A white sedan is engulfed in flames and the arsonist stands in front of it, his gloved hand holding a sign up to an unseen light so that the words are clearly displayed to the viewer as the car burns in the background: Besa Mafia dedication to Pirate London. 10 April 2016.

Besa Mafia is a site on the dark web offering murder-for-hire services. And Pirate.London is Monteiros personal website. The video is real and it is a warning.

On the other side of the world, I click on to the fifteenth email in as many hours from the administrator of the Besa Mafia website. He calls himself Yura, so that is almost certainly not his name. Earlier emails had been all business, offering bribes if only I would stop reporting on the sites nefarious activities. As the day wears on and Yuras offers are met with silence or a refusal, the emails take on an increasingly hysterical and menacing tone.

Yura promises me that his army of hackers will ruin my life. Child porn will be placed on my computer. Incriminating evidence will be planted across the internet, with all digital footprints leading back to me. This latest email has yet another new silencing tactic.

You dont know my name, you dont know who I am, but I know your name and I know where you live. I will get my gang members, and I will send them to rape beat and destroy you. And believe me, it will be successful.

Remove your articles now. All of them.

Monteiro and I have let ourselves into the back door of the Besa Mafia website, thanks to the assistance of a friendly hacker. We have been watching every interaction between the most successful dark web murder-for-hire site in history and its customers. We know all their dirty secrets. We have traced the Bitcoin that has been sent from around the world accompanying orders for the murder, beating or rape of spouses, business partners or scorned lovers.

In the few short months the site has been operational, the website has taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now the hitman-for-hire knows that we know.

And hes not happy at all.

_______

A hooded figure sits, defeated, in a concrete cell. Beside him are two dog bowls, one filled with water, the other empty. Propped against his feet, a piece of paper bears a handwritten message:

29 Aug#ISISGAMES

A web address (URL) is also scrawled on the sign, but instead of .com it ends in .onion, signifying that only somebody who has downloaded the Tor software can get access.

ISIS Red Room. Free, BRUTAL, live! A countdown clock ticks towards the deadline. The words that greet those who dare to enter the URL tell viewers what they can expect on 29 August:

We will with official media pictures and ISIS propaganda material prove to you that we have 7 very real ISIS jihadists in our capture. Everything is live and interactive. Their fate will be in your hands.

Red rooms promise pay-per-view torture, culminating in murder, of an unfortunate captive. Those who want to watch pay the website owner in Bitcoins. Rates vary from site to site, but payment is always a prerequisite. A certain amount to watch passively; more if you want to interact in the chat room with other viewers as the torture is being carried out.